I put this out not to flame, but to discuss. The eradication of Christmas has gotten quite obnoxious, all the way down to that asinine PETCO commercial("It's his first holiday"; what holiday? Christmas? Kwanzaa? Flag Day?)

The fact of the matter is nobody says "Merry Christmas" anymore despite that fact that nearly 90 percent of Americans celebrate it. And it's distrubing and disgusting....

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come roundapart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything can be apart from thatas a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

These words of Scrooges nephew describe Christmas in the America of my youth. Christmas was a special and wonderful time of year, marked by kindness and good cheer, with its myriad celebrations all viewed as ultimately stemming from the birth of the One who, in Dickens words, made lame beggars walk and blind men see.

Todays consensus is different. In last years made-for-cable movie Christmas Rush, one character wishes another Merry Christmas, only to be told, Gee, that is politically incorrect. And so it is. In one generationI was born in 1964Christmas has gone from being a widespread and joyous public celebration to the holiday that dare not speak its name. We now have holiday trees, holiday cards, holiday parties, holiday songs, and even, in one particularly egregious advertisement, a childs first holiday. Simply put, there is now raging a War Against Christmas, in author Peter Brimelows trenchant phrase.

A hallmark of this war is an aggressive multiculturalism that has elevated a variety of formerly obscure or even non-existent festivals into faux-Christmases, principally Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and now Ramadan, but also Diwali, Bodhi Day, the Birth of Guru Gobind Singh, Dongji, and Chinese New Year. The reason for the elevation of these holidays is their proximity to Christmas, not their cultural significance or intrinsic worth. Indeed, Kwanzaa was invented in 1966, Hanukkah is traditionally a minor holiday (with no basis in the canonical Hebrew Bible), and Ramadan was virtually unknown in America until a few short years ago. Despite their recent provenanceat least as pseudo-Christmasesthese holidays are now treated as coequals of Christmas, with public figures sure to pepper any of the increasingly rare mentions of Christmas with references to at least some of these others.

The desire to efface Christmas that lies behind the elevation of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and all the rest is illustrated by recent developments in the New York City public schools. The Thomas More Law Center is now suing the school system, which bans Nativity scenes but regularly display menorahs and Muslim crescents. Nor are the schools trying to rectify this now that their hostility to Christianity has been put in the spotlight. Instead, they are vigorously defending the ban, claiming that the suggestion that a crèche is a historically accurate representation of an event with secular significance is wholly disingenuous. The birth of the most important figure in history carries no weight in New York City, nor does the fact that the birth was first depicted in a crèche by another seminal historical figure, an itinerant friar from Assisi named Francis. It does not take a belief in the divinity of Christ or the sanctity of Francis to recognize their tremendous impact on the history and culture of the West. Apparently, though, the multiculturalists are eager to promote every culture but our own.

That the war against Christmas is part of a broader war against Western culture is shown by last years winner of VDARE.coms invaluable War Against Christmas competition. The Columbus, Ohio, schools banned a performance of Handels Messiah, which for the previous nine years had been the highlight of the year at a specialized school for the arts. The performance would have violated the districts religious-music policy, which came into being as the result of an ACLU lawsuit. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the policy stipulated that the proportion of religious music performed in concert be no more than 30 percent and that the performance of religious music be based on sound curricular reasons and not manifest a preference for religion or particular religious beliefs. The educational bureaucrats who devised the policy, trying to be helpful, suggested the students perform Frosty the Snowman or Jingle Bells instead of Handel. Their ignorance and philistinism is appalling, though characteristic of those waging the War Against Christmas. After hearing Messiah performed in London, Haydn was moved to exclaim, Handel is the master of us all! and to write his own great oratorio, The Creation. But, in todays climate of sensitivity and tolerance, beauty and artistic merit are scarcely a sufficient warrant for exposing delicate ears to the name of Christ.

The transformation of Christmas to holiday and the attendant impoverishment of our culture was brought about to accommodate not the small minority of Americans who do not celebrate Christmas but the far smaller minoritycomprising those of all faiths and of nonewho resent the overwhelming majority who do celebrate Christmas. In my experience, most non-Christians do not resent Christmas and generally enjoy some aspects of its celebration. This sentiment was well expressed by Philadelphia Inquirer editor Jane Eisners thoughtful and generous essay of December 2002, in which she explained why, as a Jew, she was bothered by the suppression of Christmas and [t]he conflation of Christmas, Hanukkah, and now Kwanzaa into one big, fat indistinguishable holiday.

But the transformation of Christmas into holiday would not have occurred without a dedicated, active minority who resented and despised it. An upcoming film on the art-house circuit, called The Hebrew Hammer, a spoof of blaxploitation films, features the films eponymous hero and his sidekick, the head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, battling the films villains, the sons of Santa Claus and Tiny Tim. Among the villains acts of treachery: distributing videos of Its A Wonderful Life, one of the greatest of all American movies and the favorite picture of both Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart. Judging from the films Web site, it appears that The Hebrew Hammer at least has the potential to be funny. But the reasons for its making are not. As the films director, Jonathan Kesselman, told the LA Jewish Journal, I asked myself, What as a Jew really pisses me off? It hit me when I was walking around a mall in December: I hate Christmastime.

This Christmas, though, you wont have to go to an art house to see a film inspired by disdain for Christmas. Disney is observing the holiday by releasing (through its Miramax subsidiary) another alleged comedy, Bad Santa. This movies Santa figure is shown being a drunk and having sex, is heard by other characters having anal sex, and repeatedly swears in front of children. According to the Chicago Tribunes John Kass, Disney is promoting this charming film with advertisements on TV featuring a veiled reference to oral sex and an unmistakable reference to feminine hygiene at timessuch as during Sunday afternoon football gameswhen it would be reasonable to expect children to watch them. As Kass archly observes, About the only thing that Santa is forbidden to do these days is mention the real reason that gifts are given in late December.

The whole point of Bad Santa is to mock and demean Christmas. The films boosters say as much. George Thomas, of the Akron Beacon Journal, wrote in early November, The trailer shows this as an anti-holiday film and it could be the much needed antidote to that good-will-to-man feeling that permeates the season. It goes without saying that the great Walt Disney would never have made such a film, but neither would any of the other major studios in Hollywoods golden age. They were busy instead making such delightful films as Its a Wonderful Life, The Bells of St. Marys (the film playing in Bedford Falls as George Bailey runs down its snowy streets on Christmas Eve), The Bishops Wife, and Miracle on 34th Street. The journey from Miracle on 34th Street to Bad Santa is downhill all the way.

Kesselman has the same right to hate Christmastime as the rest of us do to love it, but it makes no sense to transform our culture and jettison beloved and popular traditions to appease such hatred. The malcontents and misfits who have litigated and complained to prevent such horrors as children learning how to sing Silent Night should not be allowed to set our course. What is needed, instead, is true tolerance, a recognition that the point of celebrating a holiday is just thatcelebrationand the intent of those doing the celebrating is not to demean those who dont. As Jane Eisner wrote, Somehow we have to learn to coexist without calling in lawyers and initiating merger talks. We have to recognize the strength and distinctiveness of each celebration, and not force equality by pretending I Had a Little Dreidel is on par with the heavenly melodies of Christmas carols.

I first began thinking about this while driving to my parents in Michigan several years ago to celebrate Christmas. Even though I was driving on Dec. 23, I could not find Christmas music on any American radio station. Then I came across CBC 2, which was carrying nothing but Christmas music and whose announcers were regularly wishing their listeners a Merry Christmas. Their programming featured both familiar Christmas music and some gems in the seemingly inexhaustible treasury of beautiful Christmas music I had not heard before: Anne Sofie von Otter singing lovely Swedish carols, Charpentiers beautiful Mass for Midnight, with its generous borrowing from French carols, and Praetoriuss stunning Mass for Christmas Morning. The sheer beauty of the music brought home what we are in danger of losing. And that the proudly tolerant Canadians were playing such music led me to wonder why we are, instead, sanitizing our culture of any reference to Christmas.

Rather than strip the altars, we used to try to add to all the beauty surrounding Christmas, the work done earlier by Giotto, Bach, Dickens, Charpentier, Praetorius, and the village priest and organist who collaborated to give us Silent Night. Although not quite on this level, Hollywoods classic Christmas films have stood the test of time and are still being watched and enjoyed nearly 60 years after they were made. More recently, carols such as The Little Drummer Boy and cartoons such as A Charlie Brown Christmas have enchanted us, and they still do, nearly 40 years later. We no longer make such contributions, as the focus of the Christmas season is no longer the positive one of celebrating a shared tradition but the negative one of pretending that tradition does not exist, so as not to offend those who do not share it.

The result of sanitizing Christmas is now within sight: an undistinguished, uninspiring public celebration, devoid of religious or cultural significance or indeed of beauty, with nothing left but multiculturalist pap and tawdry commercialism. I do not believe that grim fate is inevitable. But that future will indeed be ours if we remain so unnerved by the thought of giving offense to those looking for a reason to be offended that we are afraid to celebrate our own culture, tradition, and religion

The whole transformation of Christmas is simple idiotcy to me, and it demeans ALL religions in the process. First off- the most celebrated aspects of Christmas are Pagan anyway, and any true devout Christian despises them. Presents? Santa? Even the damned Christmas tree is Pagan- the only reason the birth of Jesus is celebrated on that day is because the Christians sought to stamp the holiday out, and it backfired.

So on one hand, you have devout Christians annoyed at all of the aspects of Christmas which make it popular, and you have all of these activists pissed off that the pagan side of Christmas (which is a bad ass holiday, I have to say) happens to fall on the same day as a Christian holiday.

So seperate the religious and non religious aspects of Christmas, and let everyone celebrate the fun parts of Christmas (How exactly does Santa, presents, trees, lights, elfs, the North Pole, Frosty, Reindeer, etc conjur up images of Christ?). Problem solved, and we don't have to have 100 different holidays to do it.

First, Grimis I say Merry Christmas. Second, while the article is thought provoking and I agree in a large measure, I am tired as a Liberal (i.e. leftist) of being painted with a broad brush. A few nutcase leftists have worked on this, not the left. See I don't consider groups like PETA as left, they are facists pure and simple. I am a member of the left and a strong Christian one at that.

The fact of the matter IMO is the American public did this, not any leftist group. They secularized the Christmas long before any of ths hit the fan. They claim to be religous and Christian but don't attend chrch. And don't say you don't have to go to church, read the new testament reagrding gathering as believers. They may bother themselves to attend church at Christmas and even Easter, but that's it. We the American people are largely responsible for this secularization of Christmas.

One other factor is corporate America. Look at all the stuff then can sell for each f these "Celebrations." Maybe we should rename it "Buy lots of stuff and conspicuous consumption season."

Finally, no one in the US can stop my family and me from celebrating Christmas. Honestly I don't much care what the rest of the country does so we'll give to the needy, take food to the shut-ins, go to church, and work to keep it holy in our lives.

Sorry I sound angry but when will we stand up and quit blaming the left, the right, the moon, and the stars for what happens and take back our country. We could do it tomorrow. Merry Christmas.

Really, Grimis, if this wasn't some blatent attempt to flame the left, than why the headline and why the absolute ridiculous article. I seriously think you're only goal here was to bait - which I, of course, fell for - but really, this article is nothing more than blanket acusations with very little factual references to back up his claim.

Most Jews I know - my family included - have some sort of Christmas celebration. It might not be the focus of the month, but they still put up a tree, lights, have dinner with family and friends on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day etc. It's become both a religious and secular holiday.

Does this guy watch television? Or listen to the radio?

"War against Christmas" - gee, what other war is he referencing there?

Why is it anti-Christmas to acknowledge any other religious celebrations that might be happening during this time of year? To be so threatened by others religious celebrations that he doesn;t even want them publically acknowledged is pretty revealing. It's not like Christmas is Jesus' actual birthday.

And lastly, I try not hope on the "Hate on Bush" train that you and some of the other righties constantly accuse lefties of hopping on - but when you post tripe like this, it really makes me quaetion why I use the restraint I do...

"It's hard to be a prophet and still make a profit."- Da Bush Babees

"Finally, a candidate who can explain the current administration's position on civil liberties in the original German." - Bill Maher on Arnold Schwarzenneger

"You know, I'm a follower of American politics." - President George W. Bush, 8 Aug 2003

Just keep in mind there is a mindset amongst many in this country to turn things upside down. What's right is wrong, what's wrong is right. More importantly, what's majority is minority and what minority is majority. And this slide will continue until, well, I don't know, maybe we will do a 360 and come full circle. Nah, I think until the 180 is reached. Kinda like, "Let's teach this generation to perform oral sex at age four, but god forbid they know how raise a fist." And you can't say that isn't happening with the kids today. So they did some social good 40 years ago, there's nothing left, "lets martyr ourselves against the travesties of social injustices in the English language."

I'm not religious by any means, Yet I'll continue to celebrate Christmas because it is a tradition in my family. but I see what's happening. See the 90 percent of Americans who do celebrate Christmas are wrong simply because they aren't in the 10 percent. Alot of it is apathy, I wonder what that 90 percent could do if they were as vocal as the 10 percent. Scary huh?

And as Dirt brought up, alot of it is corporate. Reminds me of that 7-Up ad from a few years back, that guy was going through a prison, he dropped the 7-up and well you can think of the punchline. Well, that ad got pulled because it offended a prison activist group. Now I would speculate the prison population makes up a fraction of one percent of 7-up's sales, to hell with losing that donut money. Either that, or I guess I underestimated the consumer freedom of inmates.

A possible solution to that would be a religion where Sam Walton died emmm expired in a sea of gold, and baptism is retrieving quarters from a mall fountain that shoots out crocodiles and snakes. Cause remember, Sam started a business so YOU or anyone else wouldn't have to.

Originally posted by Pool-BoyThe whole transformation of Christmas is simple idiotcy to me, and it demeans ALL religions in the process. First off- the most celebrated aspects of Christmas are Pagan anyway, and any true devout Christian despises them. Presents? Santa? Even the damned Christmas tree is Pagan- the only reason the birth of Jesus is celebrated on that day is because the Christians sought to stamp the holiday out, and it backfired.

So on one hand, you have devout Christians annoyed at all of the aspects of Christmas which make it popular, and you have all of these activists pissed off that the pagan side of Christmas (which is a bad ass holiday, I have to say) happens to fall on the same day as a Christian holiday.

So seperate the religious and non religious aspects of Christmas, and let everyone celebrate the fun parts of Christmas (How exactly does Santa, presents, trees, lights, elfs, the North Pole, Frosty, Reindeer, etc conjur up images of Christ?). Problem solved, and we don't have to have 100 different holidays to do it.

Pool-Boy, you are correct about their pagan origins. many ancestors were Celts and therfore Druids are big in my family. Here's what they mean now.

1. Santa - derived from Saint nicholas and seveal others in the early church who gave things (presents) anonymously ot the poor.2.The Christmas tree actually keeps much of it's pagan meaning of life prevailng through the cold and darkness of winter except now its shifted towards everlasting life.3.Christmas was established to supplant a pagan Roman celebration I forgot the name of.4. presents - symbolize two things, the gifts of the Magi (the gifts foreshadowing his death) and the gift of Christ from God to the world. However, the record on the Magi is a bit fuzzy.5. The rest are recent additions of the radio/movie/tv age.

I am all for separating the public fun aspects of Christmas from the religous ones. O wait, I do that already as we have the secular fun side and the sacred meaningful side. And Threep, we are all not touchy, just tired of being painted with that good old broad brush that seems to be everywhere.

Originally posted by Nag See the 90 percent of Americans who do celebrate Christmas are wrong simply because they aren't in the 10 percent. Alot of it is apathy, I wonder what that 90 percent could do if they were as vocal as the 10 percent. Scary huh?

By what are you basing this? This whole "Christmas is bad" is not a leftist movement of multiculturalism, but rather a bogus accusation of the Christian right because people are becoming more educated as to the other religious holidays that occur during this time of year. Why people get so threatened by this is make no sense.

Do some people on the left feel that Christmas gets too much press? Sure... but it's not exactly something most of us care all that much about.

It's just another excuse to demonize the left as "politically correct". God-forbid we recognize any other groups that might have a holiday this time of year.

Originally posted by Nag Reminds me of that 7-Up ad from a few years back, that guy was going through a prison, he dropped the 7-up and well you can think of the punchline. Well, that ad got pulled because it offended a prison activist group. Now I would speculate the prison population makes up a fraction of one percent of 7-up's sales, to hell with losing that donut money.

Is really too much to ask that prison rape not be used to sell soda?

(edited by Leroy on 18.12.03 1451)"It's hard to be a prophet and still make a profit."- Da Bush Babees

"Finally, a candidate who can explain the current administration's position on civil liberties in the original German." - Bill Maher on Arnold Schwarzenneger

"You know, I'm a follower of American politics." - President George W. Bush, 8 Aug 2003

3.Christmas was established to supplant a pagan Roman celebration I forgot the name of.

Saturnalia, fwiw.

And, as drdirt says, his family (and mine and I assume the vast majority of others) all are able to separate the sacred from the secular and celebrate whichever combination of the two in whatever manner they feel is best.

Lastly, I would argue that most Christians have a problem with the commercialization of Christmas and not the multicultural aspects of the season as a whole. And, for that, we should not blame the left. Instead, that would be stores, toy/electronic manufacturers and the like (you know, the group that actually has more self-interest at stake in the matter).

Originally posted by CorajudoLastly, I would argue that most Christians have a problem with the commercialization of Christmas and not the multicultural aspects of the season as a whole. And, for that, we should not blame the left. Instead, that would be stores, toy/electronic manufacturers and the like (you know, the group that actually has more self-interest at stake in the matter).

That would be the group that starts putting Christmas stuff on the shelves BY HALLOWEEN, right?

There are some people who are convinced that Christmas is the one true holiday, and who seem somewhat offended by anyone who DOESN'T celebrate it. There are other people who don't celebrate it and who are tired of getting cross-eyed looks from the first group. And then there are the average people in the middle, who celebrate what and how they want to celebrate and don't really give a rat's ass whether their neighbors are conforming or not.

Group three is much larger than groups one or two. However, given any social issue that involves religion, there will always be a group one, a group two and a set of lawsuits pending.

"There were times when I intensely wanted to walk out of the theater and into the fresh air and look at the sky and buy an apple and sigh for our civilization, but I stuck it out." -- Roger Ebert

But the transformation of Christmas into holiday would not have occurred without a dedicated, active minority who resented and despised it. An upcoming film on the art-house circuit, called The Hebrew Hammer, a spoof of blaxploitation films, features the films eponymous hero and his sidekick, the head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, battling the films villains, the sons of Santa Claus and Tiny Tim. Among the villains acts of treachery: distributing videos of Its A Wonderful Life, one of the greatest of all American movies and the favorite picture of both Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart. Judging from the films Web site, it appears that The Hebrew Hammer at least has the potential to be funny. But the reasons for its making are not. As the films director, Jonathan Kesselman, told the LA Jewish Journal, I asked myself, What as a Jew really pisses me off? It hit me when I was walking around a mall in December: I hate Christmastime.

This Christmas, though, you wont have to go to an art house to see a film inspired by disdain for Christmas. Disney is observing the holiday by releasing (through its Miramax subsidiary) another alleged comedy, Bad Santa. This movies Santa figure is shown being a drunk and having sex, is heard by other characters having anal sex, and repeatedly swears in front of children. According to the Chicago Tribunes John Kass, Disney is promoting this charming film with advertisements on TV featuring a veiled reference to oral sex and an unmistakable reference to feminine hygiene at timessuch as during Sunday afternoon football gameswhen it would be reasonable to expect children to watch them. As Kass archly observes, About the only thing that Santa is forbidden to do these days is mention the real reason that gifts are given in late December.

The whole point of Bad Santa is to mock and demean Christmas. The films boosters say as much. George Thomas, of the Akron Beacon Journal, wrote in early November, The trailer shows this as an anti-holiday film and it could be the much needed antidote to that good-will-to-man feeling that permeates the season. It goes without saying that the great Walt Disney would never have made such a film, but neither would any of the other major studios in Hollywoods golden age. They were busy instead making such delightful films as Its a Wonderful Life, The Bells of St. Marys (the film playing in Bedford Falls as George Bailey runs down its snowy streets on Christmas Eve), The Bishops Wife, and Miracle on 34th Street. The journey from Miracle on 34th Street to Bad Santa is downhill all the way.

This man apparently is unfamiliar with the idea of satire. Kesselman saying he hates Christmas is no worse than Jerry Seinfeld saying he hates people that talk too loudly on cellphones; it's just a comic exaggeration.

As for Bad Santa, it's A DAMN COMEDY. Given that every ad for the movie presents the stick-thin Billy Bob Thornton in half-assed Santa regalia, any kid watching the ad anyway would say 'Mommy, why is that man dressed as Santa' rather than 'Mommy, why is Santa acting that way?' Kids aren't stupid; hell, I learned the truth about Mr. Claus by the second grade. We all knew that the guy with the booth in the mall was just some guy, but we played along for fun.

Go up to a Jew or a Muslim and say that Hanukah and Ramadan are nothing more than "faux Christmases." I'd like to see that reaction.

Rob asks Dave and Ric if they want to go backstage to play Hungry Hungry Hippos and Flair and Batista immediately bail. Flair wants to be Green. Man, EVERYBODY wants to be green. Except the girl in the commercials. She wanted to be pink. That either means that the ad agency was sexist or that she was communist. Of course Hungry Hungry Hippos is a rather capitalist game isnt it? No self respecting communist would play Hungry Hungry Hippos. Except Stalin. He LOVED Hungry Hungry Hippos. God, Ive got no clue what the hell Im rambling about anymore.-- Matt "Excalibur05" Hocking, Raw Satire writer extraordinaire

You know, I just can't call it the "WWE." I just can't. My body's rejecting it like a bad liver transplant.-- Bill Simmons, espn.com/page2

Originally posted by Tom PiatakTodays consensus is different. In last years made-for-cable movie Christmas Rush, one character wishes another Merry Christmas, only to be told, Gee, that is politically incorrect. And so it is.

A made for cable movie said it, it must be true! Especially if said in a humorous manner!! (I'm only assuming that last part, as I have no idea what this movie is)

An upcoming film on the art-house circuit, called The Hebrew Hammer, a spoof of blaxploitation films, features the films eponymous hero and his sidekick, the head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, battling the films villains, the sons of Santa Claus and Tiny Tim.

Now, we all know he gets cable, because he apparently watched"Christmas Rush" and was shocked to the very core of his soul by its over-the-top political correctness, so how come he thinks that Comedy Central's shitty (looking. Ain't no way I'm gonna' watch something that looks that bad to make sure I'm not jumping the gun in calling it shiity) movie is about to come out on the art-house circuit? Now, the St. Louis art-house circuit isn't exactly cutting edge ("Bubba Ho-Tep just came out), but I doubt any art-house theater anywhere is gonna' convince anybody to pay $8 to see some shitty movie that was on Comedy Central a week ago. Especially since I don't think it's playing the art-houses anyway.

Among the villains acts of treachery: distributing videos of Its A Wonderful Life, one of the greatest of all American movies and the favorite picture of both Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart.

That must mean it's great! If the director and the star both loved it! Usually they say movies they made are crap. Furthermore, "It's a Wonderful Life" was a horrible bomb when first released, and wasn't popular until NBC convinced America that it was a holiday tradition to watch it. Did that just prove him right, in some sick way?

Judging from the films Web site, it appears that The Hebrew Hammer at least has the potential to be funny.

He is an idiot.

The malcontents and misfits who have litigated and complained to prevent such horrors as children learning how to sing Silent Night should not be allowed to set our course.

I cut out some stuff from before this, but is he blaming this on Jews, Hollywood, or both? Any way, I did not know that any of those groups were responsible for kids not being able to hit certain notes.

Even though I was driving on Dec. 23, I could not find Christmas music on any American radio station.

Get an FM radio, ass. I heard 7 stations in a row playing Christmas music a few nights ago, and one station has been playing nothing but Christmas music non-stop, no DJs, since Thanksgiving.

Unless the problem is that he is not anywhere near America. "What the fuck! Can't a guy listen to Christmas music on an American radio station in the comfort of his own home in the middle of the Malaysian jungle!"

Then I came across CBC 2, which was carrying nothing but Christmas music and whose announcers were regularly wishing their listeners a Merry Christmas. Their programming featured both familiar Christmas music and some gems in the seemingly inexhaustible treasury of beautiful Christmas music I had not heard before:

Anyone who says this is sick. I don't try to hate Christmas or anything (I happen to be more of a Thanksgiving man, but that's not the point), but in no way can any sane person claim that there is a "seemingly inexhaustible treasury of beautiful Christmas music." That is just a sick, sick thing to say. Anyway, I hope the song is the Kinks' "Father Christmas."

Anne Sofie von Otter singing lovely Swedish carols, Charpentiers beautiful Mass for Midnight, with its generous borrowing from French carols, and Praetoriuss stunning Mass for Christmas Morning. The sheer beauty of the music brought home what we are in danger of losing. And that the proudly tolerant Canadians were playing such music led me to wonder why we are, instead, sanitizing our culture of any reference to Christmas.

Anyone who has to pat themself on the back for being tolerant probably doesn't get the point.

Wait, I think the point is that Canadians are tolerant enough to play Christmas music around Christmas time. I guess Mr. Piatak is living in Whoville under the harsh tyranny of the Grinch.

Rather than strip the altars, we used to try to add to all the beauty surrounding Christmas, the work done earlier by Giotto, Bach, Dickens, Charpentier, Praetorius, and the village priest and organist who collaborated to give us Silent Night.

Is this a reference to some obscure Christmas story, or just a poorly written sentence?

Although not quite on this level, Hollywoods classic Christmas films have stood the test of time and are still being watched and enjoyed nearly 60 years after they were made. More recently, carols such as The Little Drummer Boy and cartoons such as A Charlie Brown Christmas have enchanted us, and they still do, nearly 40 years later.

40 years ago is recent?

We no longer make such contributions, as the focus of the Christmas season is no longer the positive one of celebrating a shared tradition but the negative one of pretending that tradition does not exist, so as not to offend those who do not share it.

Because, God knows, I can't find any fucking Christmas decorations anywhere. I drive for miles and miles, and I end up having to go to a foreign, heathen land like Canada in order to find any trace of the American tradition of Christmas.

The result of sanitizing Christmas is now within sight: an undistinguished, uninspiring public celebration, devoid of religious or cultural significance or indeed of beauty, with nothing left but multiculturalist pap and tawdry commercialism.

I do not believe that grim fate is inevitable. But that future will indeed be ours if we remain so unnerved by the thought of giving offense to those looking for a reason to be offended that we are afraid to celebrate our own culture, tradition, and religion

Nothing too much to add, but that is a really poorly constructed last sentence. It should end with a bang, not with the reader having to go over the sentence like 5 times to make sure they understood what you were trying to say.

Originally posted by LeroyWhy is it anti-Christmas to acknowledge any other religious celebrations that might be happening during this time of year? To be so threatened by others religious celebrations that he doesn;t even want them publically acknowledged is pretty revealing.

It's not. I'm not saying that we should not ackowledge other religious holidyas(piss on Kwanzaa though; any holiay made up out of the blue isn't legitimate).

The problem is the fact that you can talk about Kwanzaa, Chanukah, etc etc on TV and sell Hannukah cards, but when the Capitol Christmas Tree becomes the Capitol Holiday Tree that's pretty fucked up.

Originally posted by ThreepMeI swear, religious people are so damn touchy.

I'm not religious, so I don't see what the point of that was....

Originally posted by LeroyIt's just another excuse to demonize the left as "politically correct".

The majority of the left has gotten so bad about being politically correct do we really need an excuse to demonize it; just walk outside and it's all around you.

Originally posted by GrimisThe majority of the left has gotten so bad about being politically correct do we really need an excuse to demonize it; just walk outside and it's all around you.

I'd like to think you at least HAVE an excuse for starting the thread over here. Do you? I mean, I read "I put this out not to flame, but to discuss" back in #1...yet I didn't really see you back into this thread doing any discussing until #19. You know?

Clark may look like a good candidate to us, here on the board, but how is he going to play with the Democratic base, in the primaries? He has no special ties to blacks or unions, two large Dem constituencies.